Jorge Marcheco was signed in 2021 to the DSL and impressively advanced through the system over the last couple years. He put up a really convincing season in 2022 (his age 19 season), with a respectable 3.20 ERA in 50.2 IP and a 13.5 K/9 at ACL, then struggled a little at low-A, but understandably.
This season (age 20), he moved into the Angels top 30 prospects on MLB Pipeline (unranked on Fangraphs), more so for his results than his projection. He was in the 20s when the season started, then moved up to 12 after the update. He’s been relying more on pitchability than stuff (middling fastball).
Until recently, he pitched his way to a 2.79 ERA and a 0.9 WHIP in low-A over 71.0 IP, and after a well-deserved promotion to high-A, continued to dominate, posting a 1.88 ERA and 0.87 WHIP in 28.2 IP (5 games).
Then, for whatever reason, he got moved back down to low-A despite his effectiveness at high-A and suddenly got rocked over a couple of starts.
Anyone have an insight into why he got moved down? Was A+ starting pitching too crowded? Is it something they wanted to work on? Some nagging injury?
And speaking of pitchers, what’s happened to Jack Kochanowicz? He started off at AA decently (maybe those games were fluky?), then has just gotten utterly pasted like 7 starts in a row. Did they mess with his mechanics or is he battling some injury?
